Did you know that Hubble has been non-operational during this last October due to a gyroscope failure?

One of the three remaining operational gyroscopes failed, leading to the telescope going into safe mode until engineers could solve the problem. The official Hubble mission is technically over, so any failure that cannot be fixed remotely will be a death sentence for the aging space platform.(There are still two other gyroscopes, but each loss significantly reduces accuracy of the telescope.) However they did, thankfully, managed to get it operational once again and snapped this pic.

The team of engineers that got the gyro operational again also set the telescope up to operate as the gyroscopes fail, in double and even in single gyro configuration. (A configuration that was first established for use during the Kepler mission, which suffered a gyroscope failure and then engineers figured out a way to use light pressure from the sun to counterbalance the satellite and prevent spin.)

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trackboy · 22-25, M

why dont they send up a repair mission???? 😺

UndeadPrivateer · 31-35, M

@trackboy It's an old satellite and not worth spending the billions to keep upkeeping it. The successor telescope, James Webb, will be going up soon enough.

trackboy · 22-25, M

@UndeadPrivateer its still the only visible light telescope. james webb is a infra red scope. totally different targets. they can send up a robot to repair it on one of the private rockets that are so much cheaper now.

UndeadPrivateer · 31-35, M

@trackboy James Webb is [i]predominantly[/i] an infrared telescope, as that is the most science-useful wavelength to focus on because of redshift caused by inflation as well as its ability to penetrate physical objects. It does, however, include the visual spectrum(though not as much of it, that's a different argument), it just doesn't include the ultraviolet. (There are specialized telescopes for that.)

Even with cheaper rockets we're still unfortunately looking at multi-billion dollar bills for upkeeping platforms like Hubble. It's not all that cheap just yet.

trackboy · 22-25, M

@UndeadPrivateer looks like no blue or violet as well as no ultra violet so no true color photos. and lot of interesting stuff in ultraviolet too. james webb more for edge of universe where objects are deeply red shifted. rockets will come down a lot more in price with private rocket industry. and robotics and computers are getting better and cheaper so will be able to send robotic mission to Hubble to fix it.

UndeadPrivateer · 31-35, M

@trackboy It's about peering through dust, primarily. That's the big attraction for James Webb, much of our galaxy is obscured to us by dust clouds. Infrared pierces those dust clouds.

If it gets cheap enough that someone steps up to repair the Hubble, I encourage it. But people aren't maintaining it right now because it's stupid expensive and an old piece of equipment. I don't think there's anyone who will stop you from privately repairing the Hubble though.

trackboy · 22-25, M

they should have kept the space shuttles then they would have been able to do repair missions on it. robotics will come down in price. and mass produced rockets will make it cheap to send up repair robot with the parts needed for the repair. 😺